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ROYALE RAPHAEL SAADIQ

TO HELL WITH ’EM

You’re going to want me to die for saying this.

Really. There will be readers who say, “I can’t wait until this asshole bites the dust, tucks in for a cement nap, and nobody can find the church or funeral home.”

I know I’m building straw men just to burn them, but I don’t give a darn what people do with my corpse. I’d prefer no house of worship to be involved, but it isn’t up to me.

To quote comedian David Cross, I won’t care because I can’t care. I’ll be dead. Throw me off a bridge, dawg. Put me in a bong and recycle my resin. To quote R.A. the Rugged Man, “Remix this shit, put it back out when I die.”

But to my point—now that GPS is more or less ubiquitous, to hell with funeral processions. Yours. Mine.

Your aunt’s, your uncle’s, and the ones that have delivered all my friends and fam who passed into the holes in which they’re buried. Am I an asshole for saying this? Perhaps.

But someone has to. This tradition must be stopped. I know you’ve thought it too. So just hear me out.

I came across a case to prove my point in Dorchester a few weeks ago. The way police were blocking off the streets, you would have thought the Queen of England was marching in a parade from South Boston to Ashmont. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and while I know that didn’t used to be a time at which there was insufferable gridlock in every direction, it is now, and the cavalcade of mourners hogging up various corners around Adams Village added several minutes to the trips of anybody passing through. And yes, that is too much for me to spare for some passed soul I didn’t even know. Plus, what if they were a bigot? And/or a Trump supporter? My day has to be impeded so their loved ones can tailgate each other? Nah, fuck that.

Furthermore, who are these death convoys for, anyway?

Generally speaking, at least from what I have encountered personally, it’s folks from certain religions, plus people with means. And why should privileged or specific groups get to inconvenience the rest of us? After they’re dead, no less. I looked up the Mass state law on this, and it’s utterly ridiculous—vehicles in a procession get to break the law, while everybody else has to yield to the hearse.

Last week, a motorcyclist was killed in Brooklyn after a driver trying to avoid a procession stopped short in front of her. There are other similar examples to draw from that may add some shallow credibility to my case, but I won’t rely on anecdotes in an attempt to scare heads into agreeing with me. That’s the kind of nonsense we heard from the dolts who criticized the activists who blocked I-93 in solidarity with Black Lives Matter a few years ago, their whole argument an odd concern for hypothetical sick folks in imaginary ambulances. Frankly, those are the kind of stubborn hemmorhoids who I bet would disagree with me on the procession issue. Which I suppose would make them hypocrites for thinking it’s okay to block all kinds of traffic for their friends and family members, but not for a cause that is speaking up for people in communities where deaths often go unnoticed.

Straw man, you have met your match. Perhaps cremation is in order.

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PROXY WARFARE NEWS FEATURE

For a meaningless Senate race, there’s major national significance to Warren’s reelection scrum

BY PATRICK COCHRAN Nobody who even remotely follows politics expects US Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s reelection bid—her first showdown since taking office in 2013—to be awfully captivating, or even close. Our state’s senior senator in DC enjoys strong approval ratings and, perhaps more significantly, has passionate, enthusiastic supporters. Coupled with the fact that midterm elections often amount to a referendum on the sitting president—and that they tend to be kind to the party out of power—it doesn’t take a soothsayer to see that the seat’s set to safely remain in the hands of the Democrats.

But that doesn’t mean the race won’t get messy.

In many ways, Warren’s reelection campaign represents the first leg of the 2020 presidential election. Not that the senator is certain or even likely to seek higher office at this point, but whether or not she eventually makes that decision isn’t important. What’s worth watching is the perception of her as a potential top contender, one who regularly draws the wrath of the national GOP. In the most immediate sense, Warren’s seat is one that Democrats can’t lose. Never mind the thought of beating GOP contenders up and down the board in the November elections; if the Democrats can’t manage to hold Massachusetts, whatever limited influence they still have on critical debates will be severely weakened. Because if Warren loses, it will almost surely be a symptom of a trend rattling all throughout the country.

It’s clear that Democrats have had a string of wins since the crushing defeat of 2016. They’ve won in places that defined President Donald Trump’s victory—in Rust 4

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Belt states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as in the deepest of red states, including Alabama. And they’ve consistently outpolled and outpaced Republican voters halfway through the 2018 primary process. Broadly speaking, 2018 looks good for liberals. But when it comes to the Senate, there is a factor that is completely out of the party’s control: the map.

“Over on the Senate, it’s a much narrower path,” Warren said at a recent town hall. “But it’s not a zero path. … Democrats in the [Senate] are having to defend 26 seats. … Republicans only have to defend eight. It’s just the way the calendar worked out this year. That makes it tough.”

The most daunting aspect of the map is what political wonks refer to as “The Ten,” the number of incumbent Dems running for reelection in states that went red in 2016. That will be the key defense integral to the party’s slim chance of retaking a majority in the Senate. The opposite end of the ominous task is the fact that there are only about three or maybe four GOP-held seats that the Dems have a reasonable shot of flipping.

“If we can get a majority back in the senate,” Warren added, “we can put a stop to this.”

For Warren and the dozen or so blue-state liberals up for reelection, fending off longshot challenges is imperative to party strategy. Because so far this election has been viewed through the lens of how Dems can bounce back. Given the indicators, no one paying close attention would bet on Republicans being the party to make real tangible gains in this cycle, but it’s a possibility that ought to at least be considered, maybe even taken

seriously. If Warren loses, it’s hard to picture a map on which GOP contenders don’t pick up at least nine seats in the Senate—while padding their lead in the House and in other lower-ballot races—to lock up a super majority and usher in an era of pure one-party rule across the federal government.

Such a scenario is unlikely. What is likely is that the GOP will zero in on Warren regardless of their chances of beating her. The senator is one of just a few potential 2020 presidential contenders facing an election in this year; elsewhere, Sen. Bernie Sanders will cruise to reelection in Vermont, while Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut seems less than interested in making a run at the White House, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will have to deal with a different kind of challenge, as actress and activist Cynthia Nixon has taken him on from the left in her insurgent bid. The only other widely recognized potential POTUS candidate in a similar boat is Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Regardless, we can expect the Massachusetts seat to be a target.

“The truth is [Warren]’s running for president,” GOP challenger Beth Lindstrom said in a recent stump speech.

“And she’s doing everything she can to put the spotlight on herself and win the support of the far left.”

Warren represents a threat to Trump and the GOP’s stranglehold over the levers of power in this country, and the current campaign gives them a chance to damage her theoretical candidacy. It’s an opportunity they’re taking seriously.

***

***

It’s a warm day in touristy Newburyport, and between summer vacationers and the supporters and reporters following the US Senate campaign trail, every main road heading into town is clogged.

Formidable opponents or not, Warren is the marque political figure in Bay State politics, and she doesn’t seem to be taking her reelection lightly. The senator has maintained a steady slate of town hall-style events since last year. According to the campaign, Newburyport marked the 28th such event this election cycle.

The line to get in creeps beyond the building, across the school’s front lawn and back about 100 yards to the edge of the street. It’s hot, but no one seems to mind.

That’s not surprising. As Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told his side in February, “The left is going to show up. They will crawl over broken glass in November to vote.”

“It’s gorgeous out there, and people filled a high school auditorium to capacity because they are concerned about the policies the Republicans are following in Washington,” Warren tells me after the event.

“There is a real energy, a real push to make their voices heard.”

Warren confirms those sentiments in Newburyport. “All the things you could be doing, and here you are in a school auditorium to talk policy,” the senator said. “I love being from Massachusetts.”

The senator takes the stage to a serenade of raucous applause. Other than a lone man wearing a “Proud to be a deplorable” shirt loudly booing, the crowd enthusiastically eats up every word. The focus is on policy. From unions—Warren says her brother “taught me unions built America’s middle class and unions will rebuild America’s middle class”—to healthcare, Warren addresses issues central to the progressive agenda, even addressing Trump’s since-scrapped policy of separating children of asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants from their parents.

“We are better people than this,” Warren tells supporters. “The idea that people would come to our borders, fleeing violence, fleeing death … women who are asking for asylum because they have been raped, because they have been subjected to abuse. And it’s not simply that we say that we want to hear your story. It’s that for the very act of asking for mercy that we rip their children out of their arms and put them in detention centers. This is an outrage visited on the American people by Donald Trump and it must stop.”

With that cue, someone in the crowd shouts, “Nuremberg,” referencing the trials held for the Nazis after World War II. Outside, a supporter tells me, “I don’t think anyone else has a chance of winning, but you can never be too certain after what happened last time [in 2016].”

Immigration’s also been a central issue on the red side of the ballot.

State Rep. Geoff Diehl has emerged as the narrow frontrunner in a GOP field that also includes attorney and conservative donor John Kingston and Beth Lindstrom, the latter the director of consumer affairs in former Mass Gov. Mitt Romney’s cabinet. (Entrepreneur Shiva Ayyadurai, whose campaign slogan mocks Warren’s claim that she has Native American roots, originally entered the GOP primary before deciding to run as an independent.)

At the MassGOP convention in Worcester in April, Diehl’s introduction video featured the candidate prominently driving along the US-Mexican border in El Paso proclaiming the need to fund Trump’s wall.

“You know, people say, ‘Why do we need to build a wall? We already have a fence,’” Diehl says, pointing out the border fencing. “Well, let me show you why we still need to build a wall. Do you really think this barbed wire is going to stop drugs and human trafficking from Mexico to the United States?”

The co-chair of Trump’s Mass campaign in 2016, Diehl has firmly staked out the hard-right lane of the primary. His platform focuses on lowering taxes, slashing regulations, and taking a hardline stance on immigration—positions sure to generate enthusiasm with the party’s base.

“My mission was anybody but Warren,” said Bob DeLisle, a Republican delegate from Lynn who volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016. “I don’t think Kingston or Lindstrom have a shot, so I’m backing Diehl.”

At the convention, Diehl won the nomination on the second ballot, picking up 55 percent of the delegates to Lindstrom’s 26 and Kingston’s 19.

Kingston is the kind of Republican Bay Staters have grown used to in the past few decades. Space for that position is evaporating, though, as the GOP, nationally as well as around here, shifts further to the right. In a broad sense, he represents the so-called Moderate Mitt faction—he worked on Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign—of the Republican Party: eager to cut taxes and roll back key regulations, but moderate on social issues and opposed to Trump. Kingston even unenrolled from the Republican Party two years ago in response to Trump, founding the group “Better for America,” which sought to promote an independent candidate for president.

These days, the so-called Third Way candidates— free-market capitalists with centrist positions on social issues like abortion and LGBT rights—are a dying breed in the Commonwealth. Toward the left, virtually every Democratic candidate for high office has endorsed progressive positions like single-payer healthcare and criminal justice reform. On the right, Republicans have embraced the same hard conservative views, on immigration and other issues, that dominate the party nationwide.

“On the vote to build the wall, Elizabeth Warren would vote no,” Kingston said in Worcester. “I would vote yes.”

At least rhetorically, Kingston has moved to the right, seemingly in an effort to appeal to some Trump voters. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering how big the president won in the 2016 Massachusetts primary. Two years ago, Trump won that preliminary contest here with 311,313 votes, good for more than 49 percent of the pie. Combined with Ted Cruz’s 9.6 percent and Ben Carson’s 2.6 percent, over 60 percent of GOP voters endorsed strong right-wing candidates in the last presidential primary. And at the state’s Republican convention, nearly 30 percent of the delegates backed far-right gubernatorial candidate Scott Lively. Repulsive as they may be, it’s a group that candidates like Kingston know they need to tap into ahead of the Sept 4 primary.

“Where is Warren?” Kingston, a multimillionaire who has degrees from Penn and Harvard, told the crowd in Worcester. “Busy writing books, pocketing millions, lecturing us, looking down on us. Because we’re deplorables?”

“It’s gorgeous out there, and people filled a high school auditorium to capacity because they are concerned about the policies the Republicans are following in Washington.”

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Lindstrom’s in a similar boat. Another candidate with ties to Romney, she takes a hard-right stance on economic and foreign policy issues, but also supports LGBTQ and abortion rights—social issues that are certain to be magnified given the recent news of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s pending retirement.

Some of the Lindstrom backers I spoke with at the convention cited her position as the only candidate who could feasibly beat Warren. That logic makes some sense in this climate; not only are said social issues important to many Massachusetts voters, but this election cycle has been widely acknowledged as a breakthrough opportunity for women candidates.

Through June, there have already been 75 more women to secure congressional nominations than at this point in 2016, claiming 183 total House wins so far. While the vast majority of that uptick comes on the blue side, Republicans have seen increases as well. Lindstrom’s loaded resume and image as a trailblazer in Bay State politics could work in her favor.

“I will contrast [Warren’s] empty failures with my own record of success—as a mom and a wife, as the first female director of the Massachusetts Republican Party, as the state’s secretary of consumer affairs,” Lindstrom said at the convention.

Of course, Lindstrom still needs to appeal to conservatives in a state and time when being right-wing is deeply unpopular.

“When [Warren] attacks an effort to spare our small-town community banks from being suffocated by overregulation, I will blow the whistle on her,” Lindstrom says, referring to legislation the senator opposed earlier this year to hack away at modest regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Limited polling shows bank deregulation to be very unpopular and a key issue for progressives like Warren.

Lindstrom is also on board with hardline immigration stances, such as funding Trump’s border wall and opposing sanctuary cities. All of this in a state where fewer than 30 percent of voters approve of the president’s performance.

Like so many Democrats pushing each other to the left to appeal to the party’s progressive base, Diehl, Kingston, and Lindstrom appear to be pushing each other toward the right. That may be the secret to securing the nomination, but whoever emerges on top will be facing a very different electorate in November.

“Once they get the nomination,” said DeLisle, the Republican delegate, “Democrats turn them into Hitler overnight.” *** In a political season marked by enthusiasm, what could have been another reelection campaign has become much more intense. And with the impending retirement of Justice Kennedy from the Supreme Court, the battle for control of the Senate has become even more dire. The moderate conservative who sometimes ruled with liberals on wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage, Kennedy will likely be replaced by someone far more right wing if Dems, in the minority, can’t find a way to hold up the appointment.

“People around this country are worried, and they’re right to worry,” Warren said following Kennedy’s announcement.

The strategy for liberals, at least until the new Congress is elected and seated, will be to pick off two moderate-leaning GOP senators to block the appointment of a conservative judge. It’s a long shot, but it’s what they’ve got. Which is especially daunting since the next likely justice to leave is the 85-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the high court’s leading liberal.

The whole scenario makes winning back the Senate in 2018, and the presidency in 2020, that much more important for the Dems. And while it seems like she is poised to win her seat again in a landslide, the outcomes of Warren’s political endeavors are nevertheless intrinsically tied into this battle, at every level, from Mass all the way to the highest court in the land.

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

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APPARENT HORIZON

STOP BAKER’S ‘MORE SCHOOL COPS AND SURVEILLANCE’ PLAN Why the Mass budget surplus is better spent on infrastructure needs

BY JASON PRAMAS @JASONPRAMAS

Having just been handed an estimated $1 billion budget surplus for the 2018 fiscal year, Gov. Charlie Baker was quick to make a proposal last week to divide up the unexpected spoils.

According to MassLive, “Around half of that will be placed in the state’s reserve account to be available in case of emergency. Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday laid out how he is proposing to spend the rest of that money, introducing a $583 million supplemental budget bill.”

And where does the surplus come from, readers might well ask? Well, the details are still a bit fuzzy, but the Trump administration’s drastic changes to the federal tax code months back seem to have resulted in what’s likely to be a very temporary state tax revenue increase.

Which explains why the Boston Globe paraphrased Noah Berger of the Mass Budget and Policy Center opining that “it would not be prudent for the state to spend the extra money from last fiscal year in the current one.” His preference being that “it should be spent on one-time capital expenses like roads or schools, or put away in the state’s savings account.”

But that’s not what Baker is proposing.

To be sure, there is money allotted for roads and the like. But only two items seem clearly earmarked for infrastructure expenditures: $50 million for cities and towns to fund local road and bridge maintenance and improvement projects, and $30 million for municipal clean water projects. Both worthy candidates for what is likely to be a one-time windfall.

The rest of the proposal is more problematic, however. Especially in its stated focus.

According to a July 13 press release from the governor’s office, “The administration is proposing a wide-ranging $72 million package to make school security upgrades in the Commonwealth’s schools and provide resources to students, staff, and first responders to better respond to threats within schools.”

Which is probably just red meat for Baker’s rightwing supporters. Massachusetts is definitely in dire need of more funding for K-12 and higher education. But it

There’s still time for constituents to weigh in on how the surplus funds get spent.

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needs that funding on an ongoing basis.

What it doesn’t need is a supplemental budget better dubbed the “More School Cops and Surveillance Plan.”

Yet that’s exactly what Commonwealth students will get from the following proposed items that are part of the aforementioned $72 million section of the governor’s larger supplemental budget proposal:

• $20 million in matching grants for security and communications upgrades in K-12 schools and at public colleges and universities • $4 million to provide training to school resource officers • $2.4 million to create a tip line to provide public safety and school personnel with timely information on potential risks • $2 million for a statewide “Say Something” campaign It’s true that the proposed $40 million in additional aid to school districts in that same section to hire more social workers, mental health counselors, and psychologists is a good idea in general terms. But such an effort can’t amount to much if the funding evaporates next year. Something also true of most of the line items outside the ed-targeted package in the supplemental budget proposal that would provide funding for a variety of decent-sounding programs for K-12 and higher education, and “substance use prevention, education, and screening.” Plus a grab bag of other one-offs of varying importance like “$35.4 million for snow and ice removal costs in FY18” or wastefulness like “$8 million for multi-year municipal police training needs” (in a state that already spends vast sums on popo).

And, sure, we don’t want students (or school staff and faculty) to be vulnerable to killers with automatic weapons. But then we don’t want them to be vulnerable to asteroid strikes either, and most of what we could conceivably fund in the way of preparedness on that front would be about as useless as what the governor is proposing to fund for “school security.” Worse than useless, since the main result of such measures will inevitably be to increase official harassment of students

of color and poor and immigrant students in their own schools. And the concomitant danger of their being shot for no reason. As the militarization of police proceeds apace. And their well-documented trigger-happiness is validated by the likes of Weymouth police Chief Richard Grimes in shockingly opportunist remarks at yesterday’s memorial for Weymouth Officer Michael Chesna—who was felled by a rock before being disarmed and executed by a random criminal over the weekend. Even as the K-12 school districts and the state colleges that serve those populations remain starved for funds with or without the FY18 surplus.

Regardless, there’s already a general decades-long trend toward stationing armed police on campuses nationwide, but that hasn’t stopped mass shooters from slaughtering students. There’s a veritable panopticon of surveillance measures from all levels of government on the population in general and on students in particular.

Which also hasn’t prevented mass shooters from slaughtering students nationwide.

The things that might actually stop mass shooters from appearing in the Commonwealth—like stronger welfare and public jobs programs and more stringent gun control measures—are not in the cards in the current political climate. Even here in a supposedly left-leaning state that is unable to provide the first of those two needed reforms because it’s constitutionally prohibited from having a progressive income tax. The second, naturally, being blocked by a powerful and triumphalist gun lobby in this Age of Trump.

Fortunately, the legislature hasn’t weighed in on the FY18 supplemental budget yet—having failed to send the regular FY19 budget to the governor’s desk for his signature as of this writing either. So there’s still time for constituents to weigh in on how the surplus funds get spent.

And my suggestion would be to push your state reps and senators to fight for spending whatever part of the supplemental budget is not put into the “rainy day fund” on key capital projects. Like fixing public transportation infrastructure that stubbornly continues to disintegrate no matter how much Gov. Baker’s hand-picked MBTA flacks claim they don’t need any more money—as they had the temerity to do yesterday.

Once that’s done, then start agitating for the progressive tax system that would better fund state education, transportation, and social safety net programs for the foreseeable future. Because we badly need such reforms, and because—for those of you worried about a mass shooting at a Bay State school— families that have a stable income are less likely to produce violent misogynists and racists and nazis (oh my!), since they won’t need to find scapegoats for economic instability anymore.

Progressive taxation will be a very hard reform to win in the Commonwealth, as I’ve written many times in the past. But then so will better gun control legislation.

Yet both are needed if we are going to have a more just, stable, and safer society.

We’ve got our work cut out for us. So let’s get cracking.

Apparent Horizon is syndicated by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism. Jason Pramas is BINJ’s network director, and executive editor and associate publisher of DigBoston. Copyright 2018 Jason Pramas. Licensed for use by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and media outlets in its network.

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RAMPANT AND ROUTINE HARASSMENT GUEST OPINION

On #MeToo and music festivals

BY GINA SCARAMELLA

The #MeToo movement has revealed the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment across industries, and the music scene is no exception. Teen Vogue recently produced a vivid portrait of rampant and routine sexual harassment and assault of female attendees at Coachella—including the reporter, Vera Papisova, who writes that she was groped 22 times over 10 hours of reporting.

Offenders have long taken advantage of situations where they can “camouflage,” or blend in among crowds and flashy scenery—and unless musicians and music venues actively call out sexual violence and work to prevent it, they continue to do so. In a 2017 survey of Chicagoarea concertgoers by OurMusicMyBody, a campaign to raise awareness of sexual harassment in the area’s live music scene, 92 percent of female respondents reported experiencing harassment ranging from unsolicited body comments to being stalked, drugged, or sexually assaulted. Nearly the same percentage of LGBT people reported having experienced homophobic or transphobic violence and harassment. The nearly 1,300 total reported incidents also included racially based harassment and assault.

As the #MeToo movement continues to amplify survivors’ voices and bring accountability to

And if you’re looking for examples of local musicians who call out and seek to end sexual violence, you won’t have to look far.

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perpetrators and the systems that enable them, the music industry is increasing efforts to ensure patron safety, showing that it’s possible to change the culture.

And if you’re looking for examples of local musicians who call out and seek to end sexual violence, you won’t have to look far. The Boston Area Rape Crisis Center is fortunate to have the support of several local bands, including Animal Flag—who recently donated proceeds from their album release show to our work with survivors of sexual violence and cut ties with a label associated with a reported offender—and Cerce and I Kill Giants, who held a benefit show for BARCC with support from Dump Him and Pink Navel.

On the national level, Pitchfork Music Festival recently announced a partnership with the antisexual-violence organization RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), through which a portion of this year’s festival proceeds will be donated to the organization. The late-July event will also include a Resource and Response Center where trained counselors and security staff will be available to assist attendees who see or experience assaultive or harassing behavior.

Likewise, the Bonnaroo Festival held earlier this month collaborated with RAINN on a sexual assault prevention infographic. Additionally, the Boston-based organization Calling All Crows on Here for the Music, a national awareness campaign against sexual violence in the music scene, had a presence at the festival.

(Disclosure: BARCC has collaborated with Here for the Music to train staff at local music venues on preventing and responding to sexual harassment and violence.)

Festival organizers committed to preventing and responding to sexual violence must be proactive and treat sexual assault prevention as an essential part of their responsibility for holding an event that is not only fun, but safe for guests and staff alike.

So how do they do that, exactly?

Concert organizers should get support to evaluate risk factors for sexual violence—things like rigid gender or other stereotypes, tolerance for harassment and violence, misuse of substances, or lack of oversight in high-risk areas like bathrooms, parking lots, or camping areas. It also includes protective measures such as clear and visible safety officers and a clearly communicated zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment and violence.

A festival should convey to all employees that it is serious about working to prevent sexual harassment and abuse. This means broaching the topic during the hiring process, implementing a robust sexual harassment policy, and engaging expert trainers to educate employees on how to respond to disclosures and take action as a bystander. An organization can also convey a message of support and respect for attendees by ensuring they have onsite access to professional support services if they are sexually assaulted.

While proactive policies and practices will go a long way toward changing the culture of sexual assault and harassment on festival grounds, everyone has a role to play in ending sexual violence—including fans. That means being aware of your surroundings and open to helping other festivalgoers in a way that is safe and appropriate.

Bystander strategies should seek to give agency and power back to the person being targeted, rather than dictating their choices for them.

BARCC teaches the “Four Ds of Intervention,” which gives bystanders different options depending on the situation and their comfort level. Bystanders can: • Be direct: intervene directly to stop harassment as they witness it.

• Distract: distract the offender or survivor to stop the abuse.

• Delegate: seek help from others, including festival security.

• Delay: circle back with a survivor after witnessing an incident to check in and offer assistance.

Assuming the role of active bystander means being creative and resourceful to ensure the safety and comfort of people around you. Because ultimately, it’s all about the music. And we all should be able to enjoy it on our own terms.

Gina Scaramella is the executive director of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.

LIFE AFTER DEATH OPINION

Concerns about what comes after the menace of Trump

| RESTAURANT | BAR | MUSIC VENUE | | URBAN WINERY | EVENT SPACE|

BY REV. IRENE MONROE

UPCOMING EVENTS 7.26

CHARLES ESTEN

Sings the Songs of Deacon Claybourne from CMT’S NASHVILLE

7.26

Rosé & Namaste A YOGA CLASS WITH ROSÉ

8.31

There are several noticeable signs of the pall that has hung over many Americans since President Donald Trump took office. One indicator of the dark cloud has been an uptick in the popularity of dystopian novels, with classics such as George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, and my personal favorite, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, which is also now a hit drama on Hulu. They’re all horrifyingly prescient, our devouring of these tomes a search for answers to questions posed by this frightening new normal.

Just as there has been an uptick in the reading of those classics, there has also been a steady stream of queries about what is commonly referred to as the afterlife. The afterlife refers to an individual’s soul or spirit living beyond the life of their physical body.

Also, there is the belief that one’s moral choices and actions in life can result in their soul residing—based on divine judgment—in a place of reward or punishment, known as heaven or hell, respectively. Interestingly, religious and nonreligious people alike seem to feel that if there is indeed a hell, Trump is unquestionably headed there. However, thoughts about the afterlife can be a search for answers to potentially a frightening new normal as well.

Considering that Trump appears to be invincible—in his erosion of fundamental freedoms and protections to various disenfranchised, vulnerable, and historically marginalized populations including immigrants, plus in his nativist spirit and isolationist rhetoric that may soon be further emboldened by another conservative SCOTUS justice who will shape legal precedents for future generations—it seems like these all these questions speak to a collective social anxiety, and also to a hopelessness.

As a minister in the Trump era, I’ve been receiving lots of queries about the afterlife: I want to ask you, what do you believe will happen in the afterlife? Are we as the human race going to be okay? Should I worry about what’s going to happen to me after death?

My girlfriend who believes in God but struggles with what to believe in exactly, is she going to be okay? I’m terrified right now, and as you’re one of the very few looking past religious dogma, I need your help, or at least some insight into what I should be doing, praying for, anything.

Many religions create theologies with elaborative and fictive narratives of reward and punishment systems as a form of social control, like the Christian concept of heaven and hell. I don’t think after death one is likely to go to heaven or hell in an afterlife. Sadly, that means Trump gets off the hook.

I do, however, believe that crushing setbacks, from grinding poverty to racial, gender, sexual orientation, and religious profiling, will spur many Americans, like myself, to confront and navigate an unquestionable living hell daily.

The belief in an afterlife can create complacency and indifference to present social justice issues and past crimes against humanity—the Holocaust, American slavery, lynching, the current immigration crisis at the US-Mexico border. In the case of enslaved Africans, the belief in an afterlife was passed on to my ancestors as an intentionally Christian theological concept. A form of social control to maintain the status quo of perpetual servitude, the indoctrination around an overjoyed and jubilant afterlife wasn’t to make them better Christians, but rather obedient, subservient, and God-fearing slaves.

For African-American slaves, the afterlife was a coded critique of an unfulfilled life that denied them liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The belief in an afterlife functioned as an eschatological hope and aspiration that their future progenies would indeed have the kind of existence they could only purportedly experience in death.

Meanwhile, on earth, people all across the world have taken to the streets in protest, with tens of thousands tailing Trump around Europe last week. Social justice and pro-democracy organizations are employing intersectional approaches to stem the deleterious and regressive laws of this administration.

Locally, Janson Wu, executive director of GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, recently updated the famous quote by Rev. Martin Niemoller, a Protestant pastor who was an outspoken foe of Adolf Hitler: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Socialist. …” Writing in the 2018 Boston Pride Guide, he brought to the fore the urgent need to speak up, like Niemoller, against the normalization of hate and prejudice.

“When they come for immigrants, they come for LGBTQ people. When they come for women, they come for LGBTQ people. When they come for Muslims, they come for LGBTQ people. And the inverse is true: when they come for LGBTQ people, they come for everyone.”

There are now a plethora of books about the afterlife, like the New York Times bestseller Proof of Heaven by Harvard-trained neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, MD. I feel that the concept—real or imagined—can potentially deprive us of being fully present in this life, making us miss small miracles and random acts of kindness, even the beauty of a sunrise and sunset.

While many Americans may feel fatigued from the daily dramas emerging from the White House and might feel hopeless in thinking about an afterlife, we can alter the dystopian pall Trump has cast by living in the moment and fighting back optimistically.

You can start by voting.

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BOSTONIAN EXPERIENCE THROWBACK

Public transit around here hasn’t gotten very far in 130 years

BY CHRIS FARAONE @FARA1

Somewhere among the journalistically negligent docs jamming up popular film streaming services are some legitimate feats. The award-winning PBS series American Experience is one of the clear professional leaders, and if you live in Eastern Mass you’ll want to watch its excellent installment The Race Underground, all about the miracle that truly was the building and conceptualizing of America’s first subway, in Boston, back in the late 1800s.

There’s just one catch—while it truly is an artful work of history reporting, The Race Underground is also depressing. Because with the exception of some minor details, the narrator and interview subjects might as well be talking about 2018. To demonstrate this problematic juxtaposition, we pulled more than 1,000 words from the episode’s transcript, replaced (a minimal number of) dated terms like “horses” with more neutral or contemporary ones, and excerpted it below for you to have a good laugh (and/or cry) as you read this on an un-air-conditioned Red Line on the hottest day of the summer. [Ed. note: Words in bold were added by us. Also, please don’t read too deeply into the whole twist at the end. While gondolas may be a fraction of the answer to our modern woes, we’re in need of much larger solutions overall.]

Narrator: On the morning of Thursday, Feb 9, 2017, the east coast of the United States from Virginia to Maine awoke to the severe blizzard in American history. Four feet of snow fell from the skies and fierce winds created snowdrifts up to fifty feet high. With over 400 dead and citizens left scared and angry, the blizzard underlined a transportation crisis that had been escalating for decades. In a booming economy, cities were flooded with thousands of immigrants and rural Americans seeking opportunity in a newly mechanized world.

Clifton Hood, Historian: The problem is that everybody’s crowded into a fairly small area. The available modes of transportation are slow and cumbersome. The city is growing but the transit system isn’t growing with it.

Narrator: America was in danger of choking on its own progress. In no place was the problem more overwhelming than the nation’s most congested city, Boston, where nearly 400,000 people packed into a downtown of less than a square mile.

Stephen Puleo, Writer: There are almost 8,000 workers in Boston pulling railways around the city. It is a cacophony of noise, dust, horse manure, smells, in the downtown area, extremely congested.

Narrator: As America struggled to address its transportation crisis, leaders in Boston pursued a radical solution. But their race to maintain the nation’s first subway would clash against political gridlock, selfish businessmen, and a terrified citizenry.

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Brian Cudahy, Writer: The idea of an efficient subway in Boston was an enormous risk. It was a breathtaking jump into the unknown and that can’t be underestimated. This was a jump into the unknown.

Mark Gelfand, Historian: The development of Boston, as in most other cities, was largely in private hands. And these developers of large tracts of property recognized that their profitability depends upon making these areas accessible to the downtown area. And so there is a direct and crucial link between development and transportation.

Narrator: Boston was bursting at the seams. Its population had more than doubled since the Civil War, to nearly 450,000. The city’s buses and street railways were overwhelmed.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Historian: The streets were absolutely packed every day with all these hundreds of thousands of people were pouring into the downtown.

So you really had just this incredible mass of people in a very small area.

Narrator: Ride-sharing companies also aggressively competed for passengers in Boston’s downtown.

Doug Most, Author, The Race Underground: Boston, New York and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America’s First Subway: Each of them has their own routes and fares. And it was this crazy, convoluted system. If you wanted a taxi in 2018 you would raise your hand and all these different cars might race to pick you up.

Clifton Hood, Historian: The term “transit system” implies that there’s a coherence. I think it implies that there is a kind of public service. It implies that there is a technological efficiency. And I don’t think that’s how most Americans and certainly not most transit operators view this. It’s the profit motive that determines the quality and the amount of service.

Narrator: At the State House, Gov. Charlie Baker boldly proposed the privatization of the city’s large transit system, which he would control. His argument was for efficiency, but he knew that by controlling all the lines, he would be positioned to do as he pleased with his suburban expansion.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Historian: I think there was actually a lot of support in many ways from the larger public. You might think, “Oh, a monopoly. People aren’t gonna like this,” but there was a sense that it was very inefficient to have so many different companies competing with the MBTA for passengers.

Narrator: Whitney suggested that to rid the congestion strangling its streets, it was necessary to construct more tunnels beneath the city.

Mark Gelfand, Historian: This is an era in which cities and states are prepared to make significant investments in infrastructure. Baker recognizes that in some respects the very well-being and future of the city is

at stake in terms of its transportation needs, and that it may go against his grain to embark upon such a project as this, which offers the possibility of, of tremendous waste and corruption, but, nonetheless, is so essential to the city’s future that it must be undertaken.

Narrator: By June, Mayor Marty Walsh followed through with his promise to take back the streets and convinced lawmakers to form the Rapid Transit Commission. Its mission was simple: study the problem of congestion and offer a solution.

After 50 public hearings and 10 months of study the Commission published a massive report. All options were on the table, including a gondola traversing Boston Common.

Stephen Puleo, Writer: The Boston Common is considered almost a sacred place to Bostonians and has been since the city was essentially founded in 1630. And it has been used throughout Boston’s history as a community gathering spot. There was sort of a pledge made by city fathers at the time that the Boston Common area would be kept free of any roadways, free of any development, and would be open space. Its very name, “The Boston Common,” means it’s for the common wealth, for the common good. It is a place for all Bostonians to be able to gather.

Brian Cudahy, Writer: “You’re going to dig up the Boston Common to build some sort of a silly thing that we’ve never heard of before?” People were horrified.

There was a lot of opposition to it.

Narrator: When the elevated plan was voted down, Matthews saw his chance and intensified his advocacy for a gondola . Armed with data from the Rapid Transit Commission report, he argued that such pods would cut transit time by two-thirds to one-half.

Mark Gelfand, Historian: The decision to build a gondola is remarkable in demonstrating how Americans were willing to try something new and place their bets on the future. That they understood that technology was reshaping their world and electricity, the tremendous potential of it, is going to be unleashed here in the sky.

The problem is that everybody’s crowded into a fairly small area. The available modes of transportation are slow and cumbersome. The city is growing but the transit system isn’t growing with it.

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DEPT. OF COMMERCE

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11

BOZO ON A CRUCIFIX COMEDY

Dana Jay Bein scrubs tubs to tell jokes and has zero regrets. Mostly.

BY DENNIS MALER @DEADAIRDENNIS When I moved here from Maryland, one of the first people I heard a lot about in the Boston comedy scene was Dana Jay Bein. He was a teacher at ImprovBoston, and for some reason I totally hated him before we even met.

Now that I know him, he’s one of my closest and most trusted friends in comedy. He’s such a positive and honest force that I can’t imagine how it would be around here today had he not moved here from West Springfield.

Me and Dana spoke about his start in Hub comedy more than 20 years ago, his beginnings before that, the early years of IB, and how he is responsible for helping people inside as well as outside of the clubs.

What brought you to Boston?

I went to Boston college. I always wanted to be in a city, and as a kid I loved Boston. In hindsight, I wouldn’t be doing everything I’m doing without BC. However, I’m not really a “BC person.” I’m not really a jock, or a Jesus guy. I don’t like sports. I do like thinking about theology, but in many ways Boston College is regressive. I cherished the social relationships that were forged there, and I really liked the campus and some of the classes.

What did you go to college for?

I like to tell people I majored in crippling debt. I was a lower middle-class kid, I wanted to be in Boston. I applied to a bunch of schools, and I was basically going to go to the one that gave me the most money. I didn’t have a plan, I was riding the wave of what my grandparents and my mother wanted me to do. They were so excited that I got into BC, but I didn’t really know why I wanted to go there.

I didn’t really become a theater major until my junior year, and it’s because I didn’t like anything else. It wasn’t because this is what I want to do. It’s the only thing I 12

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like to do. Now it looks like I did it deliberately. Maybe everything happens for a reason.

When did you start doing stand-up?

My first set was in ’97. Then when I went to BC, I did mostly improv. I’d say I’ve been doing it for 20 years, but I’ve been doing it aggressively for like 10 to 12.

Did you know what you were in store for at your first stand-up open mic?

The first time I did a mic, I didn’t realize a mic is a show in sheep’s clothing, so I invited people. I invited my mom, my sister, and my aunt. It was all comedians, and I remember leaving terrified and upset. My mom put her hand on my back and said, “Comedy might not be for you.” And I’ve been writing mom jokes since.

When did you start with ImprovBoston?

I first got cast in ImprovBoston in 2000. Most of ImprovBoston was BC people at the time. I met the artistic director at BC. I started performing in their Thursday night cast. It was called Maestro, and it was before The Great and Secret Show. The Walsh Brothers were the only stand-up at ImprovBoston back when it was in Inman Square. Now stand-up is much more appealing to me just because it’s more selfishly about control. I can control the choices I make, I can control what shows I do, and which shows I don’t do.

Do you consider yourself more a writer or performer?

Performer. I hate writing. In fact, when I have to, in order to write in a way that feels productive, I use my audio app. If I have an idea, I talk it out, or I’ll talk and write at the same time. After all this time, I don’t have a writing routine that makes me feel productive. That’s

part of the reason improv will never go away because I do a lot of stage writing. I do some play onstage and some crowd work, and I love to mix my jokes up and see if it works.

How is IB different now compared to when you started?

IB is such a different beast than back in the day. If you saw someone you didn’t know in the green room, it was a big deal. What cast are they in? Where are they from? Are they from New York? Oh my god, are they from Chicago?

The community was like 50 people back then, and now they have their comedy schools with like five or six hundred students. They’ve got thirty-something shows a week, and it’s absurd. There’s a lot going on there.

I see you post a lot of hot tub pictures. Do you work at a spa? Or are you just there a lot?

I clean a lot of hot tubs. I work at in Oasis in Inman Square, which is a wonderful place, but it’s also like a minute and a half from my front door. I’m there five days a week during the days, and they’ve been very cool when I have shows or festivals. It’s all Japanese wooden community tubs. It’s amazing how few creeps we encounter, and because of that, when there is somebody creepy, we know right away and we manage them out.

For me, comedy represents wellness in many ways.

And so this place represents wellness as well. It’s not exactly parallel, but I want all of my things that take up a lot of my time to be something I can feel good about. Like I don’t want any corporate jobs that just take time and don’t do anything for me. I can feel good about working at a spa. Everybody leaves happy.

Have you had soul-sucking corporate jobs like that?

I worked for a H&M for years. I was their district

facilities manager for New England and upstate New York. I made really good money there. I had benefits. I had access to a car. I had my birthday off. I had six weeks’ paid vacation. The problem was I was on call all the time. I was responsible for electricity, HVAC, all of this important stuff in 25 stores. So my phone rang from 6 to 2 am, and it was thankless. Even though I had a nice title and I made good money and I had access to a company car, I would have to bail on classes and shows so often. I remember the last year was torture.

I feel so stupid saying it because there are days when I crave those paychecks. I barely make that much in a month now what I made in one paycheck, and I’m like, This is what you chose and you love it. But that money …

Performance arts are a curse because there isn’t money in it until you’re a somebody. Stand-up is easier for you if you have a lot of money. You can travel to whatever show you want. You can apply to whatever festival you want. You don’t have to be stuck as a regional comedian. You can afford to buy drinks at every show.

I actually love writing and performing, and I love the struggle, but it’s never gonna go away. But I’d be lying to you if I told you that when I’m down, I don’t think about, screw it back to the corporate world, let’s just do it. … Actually, I got myself a tattoo for my 40th. It’s Bozo on a crucifix. There’s so much people don’t understand, and so much people haven’t the foggiest idea about the financial sacrifice we make as comedians. You have to really love it.

What age were when you figured out working in the arts could be a career?

Thirty. My parents love that I do comedy, but it was just, Have a backup plan.

You’re so smart, Dana, you could always fall back on your resume or your college degree. And it’s like, No, I hate that. I’m only here once. I don’t want to be a corporate slob. I don’t want to live for dollar signs. When I left H&M, I knew it was a financial kamikaze but, that’s what had to happen.

When did you start teaching comedy?

I started doing stand-up workshops in 2004. I wouldn’t call myself a teacher back then because I just wasn’t doing it enough to do that. I was working out of a Greg Dean’s Step by Step to Stand-Up Comedy Workbook. I was doing that for about 10 or 11 years at the Boston Center for Adult Education.

I always knew what good stand-up looked like. I think the one area that I used to mess up when I was younger teaching was I wanted their first show to be the showcase. I wanted their first show to be a warm crowd, but now I’m like, Nah, go to open mics. See if this is for you. I don’t bullshit anybody now. Now in week one I tell people I can’t teach you how to be funny. I can tell you what I think some best practices are. The rest is up to you. We’re going to workshop jokes together. We’ll put together a set over the course of these two months. Then you’ll showcase it.

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This past year you were teaching stand-up at MIT? I got hired by the Computer Science Program at MIT this past semester to work with their postdocs and research fellow students to teach my stand-up workshop.

These are all people heading on the professor track, so they’re going to be in front of a classroom, and many of these folks are academics who have not done any sort of public speaking, many of them are very introverted. …

They can really improve their public speaking. They loosen up, they start to allow themselves to be vulnerable. When you’re interviewing for some of the best schools in the world, it’s hard to be vulnerable when your whole life you’ve been punished for being vulnerable. The first thing I told this group that I taught was you are required to fail. That’s the sentence you probably haven’t heard in a long time, but in comedy you are required to fail. You will fail every show.

July 27 + 28

Ron Jeremy’s XL Comedy Tour Special Engagement: Sun, July 29

Now there are comedy life coaches. How are your one-on-one classes different?

Because here’s the thing: I’m not an asshole. If somebody tells me a goal they have, and I don’t have the tools for it, I’m not going to try to push them. I tell people when I’m out of my depth. People have told me I should be a life coach. That freaks me the fuck out. Look at my credit score, look at my bedroom, then tell me I should be a life coach. When somebody says, I want your help, and they don’t have a goal, I’m like, Well, you need to go, come back to me with a goal, and send me a clip of any public speaking or show us you’ve already done. Then I can give them an assessment.

Sometimes I realize somebody wants to do improv, or somebody wants their back patted. I can pat your back, but that’s not what I want to do.

The World Series of Comedy Aug 1-4

Ryan Davis

Have you had to deal with students who just didn’t get how jokes work?

What’s interesting is a lot of the people that struggle in class, they’re usually 40- to 60-year-old alpha males. People have been told their entire life, by all of their circles, that they’re the man. They’re the funniest at the bar. They’re the funniest on their intramural softball team. They’re the funniest in their family. And then they show up in my class and I tell them, Well, you got a lot of work to do. What was funny when you were a kid doesn’t work anymore.

Social media sensation Special Engagement: Weds, Aug 8 617.72.LAUGH | laughboston.com 425 Summer Street at the Westin Hotel in Boston’s Seaport District

Get Dana Jay Bein’s live special, Western Massochist, on iTunes, and see him live at at Remnant Brewing on Wednesday, Aug 1, or any other night as the comic in residence at the Comedy Studio in Bow Market. Also listen to the full, unedited podcast version of this interview at deadairdennis.com/podcast, and for a full listing of all the comedy shows in Boston visit bostoncomedyshows.com.

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13

NEW ERA TALKING JOINTS MEMO

PAX pals offer glimpse into the future of consumption in Mass

BY CITIZEN STRAIN

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The crew from PAX Labs came through the Dig office last week on their tour of the city, and naturally we rolled out the green carpet. It’s about time that we all start getting ready for the bright new innovations that our friends out on the West Coast have enjoyed for years, and they were awfully nice helping us catch up. They weren’t the first to come entertain us with extracts, and they hopefully won’t be the last. But I have a pretty solid feeling that they’ll be among the most enduring names in the Mass market, as they are in every other place that recreational has taken hold.

Have a lot of us been vaping in New England for a while? Of course we have. Hell, I have a closet full of old devices, from a big daddy Volcano classic for when I need to fill up a bag and toss my day right in the trash can, to a Magic-Flight Launch Box, which is gorgeous and handmade and which I truly treasure. In any case, if you’re anything like the consumers in our crew, you probably have at least some experience with the sleek pocket devices PAX has distributed around here thus far—namely, the magical PAX 3 and its popular predecessors. With functionality for extracts as well as the loose salad ingredients of your selection, it’s one of the most consistently touted machines of the past several years, and for good reason.

As for the PAX ERA, which their team was kind enough to demonstrate up close for us (check the video), the technology has been around for more than two years but has been virtually useless in the Bay State without spots to purchase the consumables. And so we’ve had to wait for them to get their distribution set up in this region to jump in on the action. Now that all those pieces are coming together, it is only a matter of months at the most before we will be able to buy oil inputs for ERA and any number of other proprietary devices as simply as finding an Inkjet refill at Staples. And that’s fantastic, because in addition to cartridges lasting much longer than your average 500 ml pen refills, the handle itself is a low-profile phenomenon, basically the size of a typical thumb drive.

Again, PAX has finally secured deals with manufacturers in Mass to craft custom concentrates, so it won’t be long until this app-based sidekick is accessible. Yes, it’s app-based; Bluetooth functionality is optional, but gadget geeks and Luddites alike may be surprised to see the wireless assistance can actually be helpful. To steal a line, you can basically set it and forget it. The app allows you to adjust the temp, of course, but also packs in other treats including games like spin the bottle, vape-style.

We’ll be back in no time with specific information on the when and where of how one can secure these pocket fixtures—as well as the goods to load into their bottoms. For now, check out digboston.com for our crash course on how to navigate this bold new world.

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SONG OF THE SUMMER: LOCAL EDITION MUSIC

Eight tracks to get you through the season’s suppressive humidity

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN If you calculate summertime according to the weather, then we’re halfway through the season. If you follow the calendar definition, kicking off on June 21 and ending on Sept 22, then we’ve still got plenty of summer days to kill. The one thing we can all agree on, though, is the need to maximize the remaining days no matter what: sipping shandies at your neighborhood barbeque, digging through impromptu yard sales, reading along the Esplanade, sweating out the toxins at an overcrowded house show, or walking around at night without the hint of a chill in the air.

This also means it’s time to declare a song of the summer. That coveted title is given to a track you can’t get out of your head, anticipate finding on the radio dial, and eventually succumb to, letting it soundtrack your summer whether you intended for it to or not. While we at DigBoston have had our fair share of Scorpion singles and Ariana Grande ballads shoved down our throats, we prefer the more tried and true taste of music from our own backyard. Why let somebody else score your 2018 memories when a neighbor could, and is, doing a much better job of capturing the vibe?

That’s why we’re presenting our top picks for Boston’s official song of the summer. From rap to post-punk to acoustic folk, our city has eight frontrunners worth your ears. Don’t be surprised if you wind up spinning all eight tracks this summer, because sometimes picking a single hit just isn’t possible.

Elephants - “Burger Drama” It’s been two long years without new music from Elephants, which makes the four-piece’s return to form—the two-track Birthday EP—feel particularly vibrant. Lead single “Burger Drama” is three minutes of pure indie rock bliss. From the vaguely disheveled guitar melody Ryan Young tears through to Loren Ipsum’s chipper backing harmonies, it’s an energetic song worth pregaming to in your bedroom and then putting on at the party later that same night, reckless drunk dancing encouraged.

Floyd Fuji - “House Party” Take a second to enjoy that smoke for an extra minute or two.

If you’re blasting “House Party,” then that means there’s no rushing around this summer, so take your time. Donning the new moniker Floyd Fuji, Kyle Thornton rides the neverending vibe of a Mellotron on this groove-laced soul song while trying to convince a girl to swing by his party. It’s a classic scenario with a familiar vibe, mellowed out to the max, but he makes it his own on “House Party,” creating a new face as Floyd Fuji while also using the Thornton strengths to stretch beyond his usual pop songwriting.

SUPERTEEN - “First Time Living” Those of you who treat Dripping like gospel and Lucky Leaves like dessert will find a new purpose in your days with Over Everything, the newest album from Salem rock act SUPERTEEN. As gripping as the record is, it’s the knotty, frantic, post-punk epilogue “First Time Living” that will make you feel like it’s, for fear of missing the obvious comparison, your first time living. It’s the musical equivalent of feeling so overwhelmed that you start to cry tears of stress, but midway through the misting realize there’re a few trusted friends by your side ready to help you conquer it all, no matter how messy that may seem. Tension has always had a funny way of amplifying bliss.

MUSIC EVENTS FRI 07.19

SAT 07.20

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge.

7:30pm/18+/$15. ]

[The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge.

7pm/all ages/$15. sinclaircambridge.com]

SAY HELLO TO THE NEW PEOPLE LIKE YOU REALLY FROM + MOTHER EVERGREEN + MORE

16

07.19.18 - 07.26.18 |

AUSSIE GIRLS TO THE FRONT CAMP COPE + PETAL + SIDNEY GISH

DIGBOSTON.COM

SAT 07.20

PINK IS THE TRUTH YOU CAN’T HIDE JANELLE MONAE

[Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, 290 Northern Ave., Boston.

7:30pm/all ages/$60. bostonpavilion.net]

TUE 07.24

WED 07.25

WED 07.25

[Great Scott, 1222 Comm. Ave., Allston.

8:30pm/18+/$15. greatscottboston.com]

[House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston.

7pm/all ages/$29.50. houseofblues.com]

[Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston. 7pm/18+/$20. royaleboston.com]

EXPERIMENTING WITH KIM GORDON AND BILL NACE BODY/HEAD + GUNNTRUSCINSKI DUO

A WHIRLWIND OF IMAGINATIVE FOLK PUNCH BROTHERS + MADISON CUNNINGHAM

THE ORDINARY CORRUPT HUMAN LOVE OF BLACK METAL DEAFHEAVEN + DRAB MAJESTY + UNIFORM

The Drunk Monkeys - “Always Wasted” On the flip side of stress is the Drunk Monkeys with “Always Wasted.” While the song title alone sounds very Boston and very summer, it’s not trying to engage with that brand of recklessness. Instead, the song willingly toils with self-doubt and sadness over a pool of cascading horns and jazz-like acoustic pop. It seems to pair with the chorus line (“I’ll be just fine”) perfectly until you realize each verse is told from the perspective of a child, a teenager, and an adult respectively, the slow acknowledgement that the statement is less reassuring as you age. It’s a summer song for those who want to embrace realism without losing their happiness.

Billy Dean Thomas - “Rocky Barboa” There’s no more addicting anthem in Boston’s music scene right now than “Rocky Barboa” by Billy Dean Thomas. The self-proclaimed “Queer B.I.G.” details what it’s like to rise up when friends shoot you down, life throws you roadblocks, and money isn’t stacking up with ease. True to title, it’s the rap song about building yourself up when others won’t, especially when you know you’re worth it, and then building off that even more. Billy Dean Thomas is the rap contender Boston needs, and this slice off the conceptual EP of the same name is a one-stop shop to understanding why.

Firewalker - “Cyanide” Those looking for a heavier soundtrack will be eager to blast “Cyanide” out their car speakers. Firewalker has been making subtle but steady ripples in the hardcore scene outside of Boston. Within city limits, their music feels particularly important, a type of hardcore that stomps down hard and lets singer Sophie Hendry stomp down even harder without becoming overdramatic.

Hendry’s growl borders on death metal delivery, which means you nod along, partially out of fear, when she sings, “I just hope this message gets to you: I’m dying” even if hardcore isn’t your thing.

PHOTO BY TONY DAYNES

Brittle Brian - “Big Piano, Passive House” According to Brittle Brian, “Big Piano, Passive House” isn’t actually all that new. The standalone song was released because it’s an old track she finally felt ready to purge. Perhaps that’s why the song has an inexplicably hesitant vibe, like Brittle Brian herself is beginning to bubble with emotion but isn’t sure what’s causing it. As each instrument enters the frame—crackling ambient air, piano, keys, squeaky saxophone—quieter than the next, she finally begins singing, narrating her daily activities with a side of self-harmonizing that feels despondent. It may not scream sunshine to most, but it will to anyone who blasts Grouper from their bedroom as an August ritual.

NEWS TO US

The Water Cycle - “Old Enough” It wouldn’t be summertime in the city if there weren’t a few college kids still lingering in between the cracks of the sidewalks. Chances are the majority of them are enjoying the Water Cycle. While most of the band’s music feels like some post-Mac Demarco jangle pop, the charming acoustic number “Old Enough,” the opening track off The Water Cycle Falls in Love EP, is a shoe-in summer singalong. With a snarky guitar line, the trio talks about being heartsick during early adolescent years and studying romance advice. If you squint, it’s like listening to Jonathan Richman’s solo material while flinging fries to the seagulls on Revere Beach.

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

17

WILD MOCCASINS WHEEL OF TUNES

Drake, southern food, and Klon Centaur pedals

BY NINA CORCORAN @NINA_CORCORAN Life has gotten rocky for Wild Moccasins as of late, but the Houston-based indie pop act has found a way to sound smoother than ever despite that.

On the band’s newest album, Look Together, synths pour into the mixture to turn otherwise melodic indie rock into a more romantic and laid back affair.

While Look Together shows some significant sonic changes, it also sees Wild Moccasins taking another new turn in the band’s career. Technically, the recording was a hurdle in itself both lyrically—it was a breakup record for both Zahira Gutierrez and Cody Swann—and literally— because they technically lost other members, including a guitarist and a drummer. “It made it more exciting for us to have those shoes to fill,” says Swann. As a band, both members found they had to assert themselves more boldly, learn how to write beyond their own individual parts, and fill the shoes of someone else while learning how to be comfortable in them.

“A lot of our change comes from getting less insecure about how we sound. As much as the way things go, I think a lot of our change in sound was a conscious decision. We wanted to get out of our comfort zone on this record, so the way we did that was by making decisions that alternated the way we write,” says Gutierrez.

“I wrote more on this record than the last one. I wanted to have more of my voice on the record, because Cody and I wrote most of it with the help of our drummer.”

To understand how they’ve grown over time, we interviewed Zahira Gutierrez and Cody Swann for a round of Wheel of Tunes, a series where we ask musicians questions inspired by their song titles. With Look Together as the prompt, their answers are quizzical and fun—a flash of what to expect when the band headlines ONCE Somerville this Sunday.

1. “Boyish Wave” How would you describe the way you usually greet your male friends?

CS: We have a tight-knit group of friends, girls and guys. If we stop to hang with anybody, we’re probably going to give them a big hug. Anybody who has stuck around with us for this long deserves a hug.

2. “Temporary Vase” Have you ever had to turn an object into a makeshift vase because you didn’t have a proper place to put flowers?

CS: Yes, but I can’t give you the exact time that I’ve done it. I know I have, though.

You made me think of also Zyra and her boyfriend use trophies from thrift stores as bookends.

ZG: But that’s different!

CS: I know, but it’s just as zany.

ZG: They’re happy and they’re cheap! But yeah, I don’t put anything in a vase because I kill all plants. I killed a one recently that’s hard to do, supposedly, so I try to stay away from flowers now.

3. “Longtime Listener” Who is an artist you’ve been listening to for over a decade but would be too scared to talk to if given the chance?

ZG: There are very few people out there I don’t want to know because I don’t want the image of them to shatter, or be too intimidated. I would probably say Bjork because she’s such a huge inspiration to me and she’s not even a real human, you know? She’s from another planet. Who knows how to talk to her?

CS: David Byrne, because I don’t know what you would even say to the guy who has heard it all and seen it all. All you can say is thank you.

READ THE REST OF NINA’S INTERVIEW AT DIGBOSTON.COM

>> WILD MOCCASINS, FITNESS, NOVA ONE. SUN 7.22. ONCE SOMERVILLE, 156 HIGHLAND AVE., SOMERVILLE. 7PM/18+/$12. ONCESOMERVILLE.COM

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DIGBOSTON.COM

NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

19

HARD ACT TO FOLLOW FILM

A remake of Vertigo—remade from other movies

BY JAKE MULLIGAN @_JAKEMULLIGAN

“That gave us a green effect, like fog over the bright sunshine,” Hitchcock says to Truffaut in the latter’s book about the former, regarding a filter used for some of the exterior shots in Vertigo [1958]. From this photographic effect, The Green Fog [2018] takes its name—and then it continues to pilfer from Vertigo, right down to its barest architecture. Originally commissioned by SFFilm and Stanford Live, The Green Fog is a 63-minute compendium of film clips taken from other movies and television shows that were produced in San Francisco. It was directed by the team of Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson (their second feature-length collaboration after The Forbidden Room [2015]), and was originally presented as a “concert film,” with the Kronos Quartet performing a live musical score (composed by Jacob Garchik). Since its premiere, the score has been recorded and the film presumably reshaped, but the same general conceit does remain: The Green Fog presents a series of associatively edited musical montages that “depict” iconic sequences in Vertigo by lining up “similar” images taken from other movies. So where Vertigo begins with Scottie (James Stewart) giving chase to a criminal across the rooftops of Taylor Street, The Green Fog’s first chapter begins with a two-minute montage of brief shots taken from other chase scenes lensed on San Francisco rooftops, pulling from crime movies and policiers including They Call Me Mister Tibbs!

[1970], Dirty Harry [1971], and the Chuck Norris-led An Eye for an Eye [1981] (the latter being a film that hangs over The Green Fog like a haze of its own).

The Green Fog is at the Brattle Theatre for three days this weekend, where it’ll play as a double feature with Vertigo itself (presented in 35mm). A welcome opportunity, I think, because to view both films back to back reveals more clearly the manner by which The Green Fog operates.

The parallels are, of course, the raison d’etre, but its approach toward representing Vertigo rarely feels beholden to any discernible orthodoxy. It would’ve probably been possible, for example, to actually recreate Vertigo shot for shot—to find in other movies an equivalent camera setup for every one in Hitchcock’s, and to use those stand-in shots to “remake” the older movie. But that’s not what Maddin, Johnson, and Johnson are up to; what they’ve built instead is more like a series of themed set pieces, a succession

of symphonic monuments built in Vertigo’s honor. As mentioned, from the opening scene of the ’58 film, there comes Fog’s two-minute tribute to rooftop chases. And from the scene where Scottie first stalks Madeleine (Kim Novak) across the city, Fog offers a long procession of shots of cars trolling up and down the hills of San Francisco, cataloging automobiles as they were seen in almost every decade of the sound era. From a shouting match between Scottie and Judy (Novak again, spoilers!), Fog creates a noisy cacophony of romantic arguments sampled from other films (letting dialogue in for once, but also letting it drown itself out). Each sequence of The Green Fog becomes something like a celebration of the exact cliches that Hitchcock’s Vertigo ostensibly transcends—parades of the ordinary mingling together in hopes they’ll add up to something more.

On a purely surface level this provides an inherently entertaining prospect for movie heads. And beyond just the bursts of recognition that come with so many fleeting appearances, The Green Fog is also just pretty damn funny, often matching up its images toward pleasurably unexpected ends. For instance, there are obviously many shots of people falling from buildings—falling through space with only the Kronos score behind them—and the “splat” shots that the directors use to climax these sequences are, well, satisfying in that queasy sort of way, enough to make this writer laugh excessively (same goes for the aforementioned emphasis on An Eye for an Eye—in Norris’ blank facial expressions, the directors of Fog locate their stand-in for a catatonic Scottie). Within all these Vertigo-themed montages, there are also overarching narratives and even subplots that can be sussed out, many of which seem to comment on or even critique Vertigo itself: Those include Fog’s regular cutaways to images of post-’60s surveillance imagery (a real-world lineage for Hitchcock’s “interests”), or its depiction of a scene where a Madeleine stand-in speaks to one of her female friends (an event that, pointedly, does not occur in Hitchcock’s movie). One could even read The Green Room cut for cut and find within it a larger critique of Hitchcock’s methodology—in different interviews, the filmmakers have talked about how their remix aims to shake up the “male gaze,” a concept that Vertigo may have even helped to

define—but for me it’s the film’s implicit vision of the whole film industry that provokes more affecting considerations.

Fog is assembled mostly from clips of commercially oriented feature-length movies, and so underrepresented voices are suggested rarely if at all. For the most part Fog depicts San Francisco by way of Hollywood, which is to say: a place that seems to play home only to cops, snipers, and wealthy romantics—and even then, only to white ones.

Of course it’s fair to say that any longform assemblage of preexisting media clips will provoke interpretations of the representations contained therein. Such critiques seem both explicit and implicit, for example, in works like Christian Marclay’s The Clock [2010] (which has been on display at the MFA on multiple occasions since its premiere) or Arthur Jafa’s Love is the Message, the Message is Death [2016] (currently on view at the ICA—and more on that in a future issue). And certainly representational critiques are central within Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself [2003], another feature-length assemblage of clips taken from other movies—though Andersen’s film, given its constant use of voiceover and generally academic demeanor, fits more snugly into the “film essay” subgenre. Nonetheless the connection has been made in numerous outlets, including by Jonathan Romney in his exceptional Film Comment review of The Green Fog, in which he noted: “it could also have been named San Francisco Plays Itself.” In Andersen’s film, movies set in Los Angeles are catalogued and even graded based on the relative faithfulness of their depictions of the city’s geography or physical makeup— with some films even dinged for their perceived disrespect, say, of the city’s modernist architecture. His concern is with the dishonest record of a city that is left behind when the media depicting it has been crafted by a crowd of shut-ins and outsiders drawn from overwhelmingly white and/ or wealthy backgrounds. But where Andersen would see an unpardonable sin in presenting a shot of the Grace Cathedral church as being interchangeable with one of the Mission Dolores, Maddin and the Johnsons shape their form around exactly those incongruities.

“Once we got it into our heads to organize the footage around Vertigo, we no longer felt constrained to represent the city’s history,” Maddin explained in an interview with Fandor, after noting that his co-directors had never even been to the city they had been commissioned to pay homage to. And I think you can feel that in the film’s interchangeable treatment of San Francisco’s landmarks: If Los Angeles Plays Itself was concerned with the way that movies distort real cities, The Green Fog is most concerned with the appearance and textures of the distortions themselves—in all their bullshit, or all their beauty. The original screenplay of Vertigo, written by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, describes one scene that’s set at Ernie’s Restaurant thusly: “We are in the upstairs room that, in mood and decor, takes us back to Bonanza Days. This is the way San Francisco was.” With no way of knowing or depicting “the way San Francisco was,” The Green Fog offers a relatively definitive record of the way it was filmed instead.

>> THE GREEN FOG. BRATTLE THEATRE. 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. FRI 7. 20–SUN 7.22. NOT RATED. DOUBLE FEATURE WITH VERTIGO (35MM). $11.50-14.

SEE BRATTLEFILM.ORG FOR SHOWTIMES. 20

07.19.18 - 07.26.18 |

DIGBOSTON.COM

WALKING MEDITATION

Enhance strength for people with poor circulation and insufficient energy.

Alleviate discomfort from dizziness, arthritis Insomnia, allergies, etc.

Boston Bodhi Meditation 781-874-1023 Email: boston.bodhi@gmail.com Address: 101 Mystic Ave, Medford, MA 02155 NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

21

GROOMED SUBMISSION SAVAGE LOVE

BY DAN SAVAGE @FAKEDANSAVAGE | MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

I’m a 20-year-old submissive woman. I’m currently in a confusing affair with a 50-year-old dominant married man. He lives in Europe and has two kids close to my age. We met online when I was 17 and starting to explore my BDSM desires—out of the reach of my overbearing, sex-shaming, disastrously religious parents—and we’ve been texting daily ever since. We’ve since met in different countries and spent a total of three weeks together.

Those weeks were amazing, both sexually and emotionally, and he says he loves me. (Some will assume, because of the age difference, that he “groomed” me. He did not.) I date vanilla boys my age, with his full support, while we continue to text daily. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to blow up his family if (or when) our affair is discovered. But at the same time, our relationship has really helped me navigate my kinks and my sexuality. Expecting him to leave his wife for me is a highly unrealistic cliché, I am aware. Yet I fear I’ve become dependent on his conversation and advice. I’m graduating soon and have a big job lined up in a big city. I’ll finally be financially independent, and I’d like to start making the right choices. Any perspective you have would be much appreciated.

Things Must Improve He is not going to leave his wife for you, and you shouldn’t assume his wife is going to leave him if (or when) this affair is discovered (or exposed). Divorce may be the default setting in the United States in the wake of an affair, TMI, but Europeans take a much more, well, European attitude toward infidelity. Definitely not cricket, not necessarily fatal.

And you don’t need him to leave his wife for you, TMI. Okay, okay—you’re in love, and the three weeks you’ve managed to spend together were amazing. But don’t fall into the trap of believing a romantic relationship requires a tidy ending; film, television, and literature beat it into our heads that romantic relationships end either happily at the altar (à la Pride and Prejudice) or tragically at the morgue (à la Forensic Files). But romantic relationships take many forms, TMI, as does romantic success. And this relationship, such as it is, this relationship as-is, sounds like an ongoing success.

In other words, TMI, I think you’re confused about this relationship because there won’t be a resolution that fits into a familiar mold. But you don’t need a resolution: You can continue to text with him, and he can continue to provide you with his advice and support while you continue to date single, available, and kinky men (no more vanilla boys!) closer to your own age and/or on your own continent. Eventually you’ll meet a new guy you’re crazy about—someone you can see for more than one week a year—and you’ll feel less dependent on and connected to your old flame.

On the Lovecast, it’s hard to date when you’re a sexuality professor: savagelovecast.com

COMEDY EVENTS THU 07.19 - SAT 07.21

ALEX EDELMAN @ LAUGH BOSTON

Known for winning the prestigious Fosters Best Newcomer prize at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for his one man show, “Millennial”, Alex is only the second American ever to have done so. In 2015 he was named a “New Face” at the Just For Laughs Festival Montreal, one of Comedy Central’s “Comics to Watch” in 2014 and listed as #10 on NY Magazine’s “50 Comedians You Should Know in 2015”. A regular performer at most of the city’s clubs, he tours both nationally and internationally and is one of the founders of Jerusalem’s Off the Wall Comedy Club and a favorite on the UK festival circuit. Alex was recently writing on the new CBS show ‘The Great Indoors’ starring Joel McHale. Most recently his hour “Peer Group” premiered on BBC radio. Today you can catch Alex on tour opening for both Ryan Adams and Beck.

425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | 8 & 10:15PM| $20 - $25 THU 07.19

HEADLINERS IN THE SQUARE @ JOHN HARVARD’S BREWERY & ALE HOUSE

Featuring: David Drake, Joe Kozlowsky, Josh Filipowski, Tim King, Shyam Subramanian, AJ O’Connell, Shiv Patel, & Andrew Della Volpe.

Hosted by Tom Kelly

33 DUNSTER ST., CAMBRIDGE | 9PM | FREE FRI 07.20

BILL’S BAR COMEDY @ BILL’S BAR BOSTON

Featuring: Will Noonan, Dan Crohn, Alan Fitzgerald, Nick Ortolani, Pamela Ross, & Ben Quick.

Hosted by Zach Russell & Robert Pooley

5 LANSDOWNE ST., BOSTON | 7:30PM | $5 SAT 07.21

LEAGUE OF LAUGHS @ COMICAZI

Featuring: Elisha Siegel, David McLaughlin, Brandon Vallee, Maylin Pavletic, Justin P. Drew, Angela Sawyer, & Sam Ike..

407 HIGHLAND AVE., SOMERVILLE | 7:30PM | $7 SUN 07.22

LIQUID COURAGE COMEDY @ SLUMBREW

Featuring: Zach Russell, Janet McNamara, Brett Johnson, Shea Spillane, Alex Giampapa, Mike Settlow, & Harrison Stebbins.

Hosted by Liam McGurk

15 WARD ST., SOMERVILLE | 8PM | $5 MON 07.23

FREE COMEDY @ CITYSIDE

Featuring: Sam Tallent, David Drake, Jay Whitecotton, Andrew Polk & more.

Hosted by Sam Ike & Anjan Biswas

1960 BEACON ST., BRIGHTON | 8:30PM | FREE WED 07.25

FRESH DRUNK STONED COMEDY @ LAUGH BOSTON

The Fresh Drunk Stoned Comedy tour has been selling out across the country. This showcase of LA and Chicago comedians brings you irreverent comedy where you will party, learn, and laugh. Come get to know Tim Hanlon, Franco Harris and Matt Bellak. Their unapologetically witty approach to comedy reminds us all to laugh at life. So kick back, relax, stay fresh, enjoy a drink and have a smoke!

425 SUMMER ST., BOSTON | 8PM | $10 - $20

savagelovecast.com

22

07.19.18 - 07.26.18 |

DIGBOSTON.COM

Lineup & shows to change without notice. For more info on everything Boston Comedy visit BostonComedyShows.com Bios & writeups pulled from various sources, including from the clubs & comics…

WHAT'S FOR BREAKFAST

BY PATT KELLEY PATTKELLEY.COM

LIVE MUSIC • PRIVATE EVENTS 7/19

Beat Surrender MOD DJ Night

With DJ Louis Le Mod & guest DJ Yana Lil-Jerk 7/20

Dan & the Wildfire, Dan Masterson, Erica Leigh Indie Folk 7/21

THE WAY WE WEREN’T

BY PAT FALCO ILLFALCO.COM

Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys, Frenchy and the Punk, The Men that Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing and Radiator King Folk Rock/Punk Rock Mix 7/22

Wild Moccasins, Fitness, Nova One Indie pop 7/23

OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS

BY TIM CHAMBERLAIN OURVC.NET

Pearl, Rock Academy Show Band feat. Scott Ian

A Rock Academy Benefit for Girls Rock Campaign Boston

156 Highland Ave • Somerville, MA 617-285-0167 oncesomerville.com a @oncesomerville b/ONCEsomerville NEWS TO US

FEATURE

DEPT. OF COMMERCE

ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

23

SHIFT GEARS. GET WEIRD.

featuring

THE VOIDZ CITY HALL PLAZA • 12PM - 5PM • $15

AUGUST 11 BOSTON TH

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